Formula One chief executive says he 'needed more time to prepare’ as he
is accused of gaining $41m from sale to CVC

Bernie Ecclestone asked on Friday to “go back on” some of the evidence he had given to the High Court on Thursday in his $140 million damages lawsuit as he was accused of “lying repeatedly”.

On another tense day of cross-examination, which produced some heated exchanges between Formula One’s 83-year-old chief executive, who is a co-defendant in the suit, and Philip Marshall QC, representing Constantin Medien, Ecclestone said that he had not had sufficient time to prepare himself and had been “in a hurry” when giving evidence on Thursday.

It is unclear to which evidence Ecclestone was referring but on Thursday the court heard that former team owners Eddie Jordan, Alain Prost and Tom Walkinshaw had all personally been paid $10 million, or £7 million, to ensure that they signed the 1998 Concorde Agreement, the sport’s key commercial deal.

Marshall had repeatedly asked Ecclestone whether he regarded “the payment of bribes to people who are not public officials as acceptable”. “I will have to think about that,” Ecclestone had said. “I wish I would have thought about it before actually.”

Giving evidence for a third straight day on Friday, Ecclestone said that he had not had time to look through all the documents properly. “Yesterday I was in rather a hurry,” he told Marshall. “You’ve had months and months and months to look through all the documents and pick out points. I’ve been in lots of different countries and done lots and lots of miles on aeroplanes and I haven’t had the opportunity to do that. Now I’m going to have. I don’t care if this takes until the end of the year. I will look at everything now.”

Later, Ecclestone repeated the point when addressing the judge, Mr Justice Newey, saying that he had been “in a hurry yesterday and made some answers which I’d like to go back on if I have the opportunity”.

Ecclestone will be back in the High Court on Monday, when his cross-examination is expected to finish. His counsel, Robert Miles QC, will then have the opportunity to ask him questions.

Ecclestone and three other parties are facing accusations that they paid $44 million in bribes to a German banker, Gerhard Gribkowksy, to purposefully undervalue the sport when it was sold to its current owners CVC Capital Partners, in 2005. Constantin Medien, a former shareholder in Formula One, claims it lost out on a hefty commission as a result.

Focusing on Ecclestone’s dealings with Gribkowsky, Marshall claimed that F1’s chief executive stood to gain a huge amount from the sale to CVC.

Ecclestone was paid $41 million commission, which he did not declare to CVC, as well as a 5.3 per cent shareholding worth an estimated $263 million, as well as retaining almost total control of the sport.

The most heated exchanges, however, concerned a loan which Ecclestone allegedly tried to purchase for $150 million, and which he denied any knowledge of.

“So this has just been made up, has it?” Marshall asked.

“Well, it must have been if it wasn’t true,” Ecclestone said.

“I have to suggest you’re just lying about this, aren’t you?” Marshall said. “You’ve been lying about it repeatedly throughout this afternoon.”

Ecclestone said that he would reveal all about the loan in time but that he advised Marshall “not to get involved in it”.

Earlier in the day, it was revealed that Ecclestone had telephoned Fred Goodwin, then chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland, to ask for help to finance CVC’s takeover of Formula One. Goodwin, who later became known as “Fred the Shred” following the near-collapse of RBS, was in charge at the bank when they sponsored the Williams team. CVC went on to purchase a controlling stake in Formula One, backed by a loan from RBS.

Marshall suggested that Ecclestone had engineered the sale to CVC as his “preferred purchaser”, telling its chairman Donald MacKenzie, that it would cost $2 billion to buy the sport, while denying rival bidders such as Rothschild bank, Hutchison Whampoa and American firm Bluewaters, the same information.

Court proceedings were interrupted at one stage by a fire alarm warning, with Ecclestone saying that he was prepared to continue to give evidence “through the fire”.